Oliver was born September 21, 1901, in New Haven, Ct., and died April 26, 1959. A proud graduate of Andover and Yale, Oliver had a successful career as an insurance industry executive, first in New York City and later in Jacksonville, Florida. He and his wife Alice Heath, of Evanston, Illinois lived most of their adult lives at 2 Steven Mather Road in Darien, Ct. (and indeed are now buried at the small cemetery on that road), where they raised their two children. Here Oliver is pictured with his eldest daughter, Joan Elizabeth Whipple, on the day of her wedding.
In 1958, Oliver was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Deemed inoperable, he was given only a few months to live but he held on long enough for his daughter, pregnant at the time of his diagnosis, to bring her three month old baby—his first grandson—to him in the hospital so he could hold his first grandson before he died. This dedication is posted in his honor by his two granddaughters, Susan Snider and Tracey Hennessy, and by that grandson whom he held only once, David Whipple Crane.